Articles

The Knackered Ramblers is a duo of well-known artists, Laura Boosinger (banjo) and Mike Compton (mandolin). Boosinger is based in Asheville, North Carolina, while Compton lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Both are long-time veterans of traditional music styles that include bluegrass, old-time, string band, and gospel. Boosinger’s clawhammer style of banjo has been heard…

John Reischman and the Jaybirds somehow make old-time music sound fresh and new again and again. On this latest album, the band blends old-time, bluegrass, folk, and gospel sounds in a comforting tapestry. They evoke a melancholic nostalgia in a song like “The Old Churchyard” while never becoming overly sentimental. The title track is an…

Q: I love seeing the old black & white archival photos of bluegrass from the days of old. In the early 1980s, while living in Los Angeles, I met and befriended Marshall Freedland, and we shared our love of bluegrass music and artists. He told me he had a wealth of photos that he took,…

written By Derek Halsey This past December, the news of the death of the great Texas singer and songwriter Joe Ely reminded the world once again of the previously little-known disease called Lewy Body Dementia. The bluegrass scene faced its Lewy Body Dementia moment when the news came out about two-and-a-half years ago that the…

By Nancy and Dick Kimmel Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1983, Volume 17, Number 11 1982 was a pivotal year for Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys. It was the first year this band was able to do extensive touring outside of their immediate home area. Personal contact through touring has always…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 1986, Volume 20, Number 12 When you’re talking about traditional bluegrass music on the West Coast these days, chances are that you’re talking about the Vern Williams Band. Although there are other, solid, bluegrass bands to be found throughout the western states, it is Vern Williams that has managed…